The first rule of Usenet is, you don’t talk about Usenet. This rule kept Usenet providers and users out of sight from anti-piracy organizations for years, but this is about to change.
Usenet is catching up with BitTorrent in terms of popularity, partly because it is considered to be safer. However, this increased popularity also has a dark side to it, as anti-piracy organizations start monitoring newsgroups.
Tim Kuik, managing director of BREIN - the Dutch branch of the MPAA - told the Dutch news site Webwereld that the increased attention from computer magazines over the past year lowered the nerd-factor of the Usenet. Because of this it’s now become one of the main targets of anti-piracy outfits.
Kuik further said that BREIN made a blacklist of Usenet providers who structurally infringe copyright. Their plan is to urge these providers to stop their services and compensate the content owners for their losses. Some might argue that Kuik’s words are yet another loose threat to make it seem like no pirate is safe, but there is some truth in his statements.
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